


Yellow Flowers In Your Hair

by LetItRaines



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21647233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetItRaines/pseuds/LetItRaines
Summary: Emma Nolan has been raised in a privileged household and has never wanted for anything other than freedom to live her life on her own terms. Her parents want that for her as well, at least to a certain extent, but when her father unexpectedly passes, Emma is left with two options: marry a man she doesn't love or lose the home filled with memories of her beloved father as well as memories of her first love, a man with blue eyes and a kind smile who left for the Navy years ago and hasn’t been home since.But what if her first love were to come back?
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 104
Kudos: 263





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shardmind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shardmind/gifts).



> If you know me, you know anything other than modern isn't my thing, but here we are! This is part of my fic giveaway and is based off the trope combination of [Historical + Grief + Starcrossed lovers ](https://let-it-raines.tumblr.com/post/187340930945/1-38-and-64-ya-im-greedy-but-you-put-the) ❤️
> 
> As a warning, David has died in this (I know, I know), but nothing graphic or anything is shown!

A soft breeze blows over tall blades of grass, causing them to sway and for the leaves on the trees above to shake in a quiet rustle that mutes most other sounds of nature. There are birds chirping, but they’re quiet, their songs not as beautiful and vibrant as they usually are. Somber. Emma would describe the songs as a somber melody that causes an ache in the heart as it searches for a happy tune amongst the darkness.

And yet maybe that is her own mindset. Maybe that is all in her mind’s own making. If she’s honest with herself, which she hasn’t been lately, she knows that the muted sounds and the slightly grayer sky are all in her mind. In actuality, the sky is a vibrant blue, one that painters wish to recapture in their work, and the birds are likely chirping happy tunes that one could skip to or dance to at a picnic. The sun shines brightly overhead, warm enough to coat Emma’s skin in a glow that should bring life back to her, and yet Emma still feels a chill over her flesh, little bumps rising on her arms despite the knitted coat she has hanging loosely off her shoulders.

What today is can only be described as beautifully pleasant. It is a day Emma has experienced many times in the nearly twenty-four years of her life, and while otherwise it should be a normal day where she rides her horse or spends her afternoon in the study reading one of the novels her father has brought back for her from his travels or simply from a trip to the market, today is anything but a normal day in her life.

Today is very much the worst day of her life, and she is so overcome with grief that she is not sure if her mind has even been able to wrap around it all.

Truthfully, though, Emma may not be able to wrap her mind around today being the worst day of her life because she has spent the last six years thinking that another day was the worst day of her life. She has spent six years replaying the day where Killian walked off of the estate to travel to the Naval base where he enlisted, and having that day not be the worst is…unimaginable even though her heart has never been more broken than it is in this moment. 

Everything about that day is still so clear in her mind. Her memories can replay the sad curve of Killian’s lips that quickly turned into a reassuring smile when the tears started to fall from her eyes. The blue of Killian’s eyes and the way they sparkled in the sunlight, the complete lack of stubble on his face, the new cut of his hair, the deep accent of his voice that was so different than how it sounded when he was becoming the man that he is - it is all so clear in her mind even though it is a distant memory.

She misses him. She misses the way that he’d sneak her apples from the orchard as if they were not already owned by her family. She misses the way that he’d sneak away from work to come sit by her at the lake, the two of them talking until he absolutely had to go back. He used to always say he was simply doing a bit of gardening, and while he would occasionally pick a yellow flower for her, there was no gardening involved.

They always were weeds and not flowers anyhow, but Emma has found that she has a fondness for pretty things that most people deem unworthy because they are not expensive or proper things.

She misses his laugh and the way his skin looked under the sunlight, especially after a summer of Killian spending his days outside. She misses the way his lips felt against hers in stolen kisses that had her cheeks painted red and a constant smile painted on her mouth even when she was supposed to be looking serious.

She misses every little thing about him, and she’s been counting the days he’s been gone. He told her that he would wait for her, that not a day would go by where he would not think of her, and he asked her if she would do the same.

Of course, she would. She has, even if she knows that in reality, her parents would never allow her to marry someone who is under their employ. She is supposed to marry a man of status, of worth equal to that of hers if not more.

Status has never been much of one for love.

To hell with status and being proper when she has never been one for conventional methods and traditions anyways. Growing up with Killian by her side likely aided in that.

Emma always thought that the day that Killian left would be the hardest day of her life.

She never assumed that it would be eclipsed by the death of her father if only because her father has been too young and healthy to die.

And yet, he has.

She…can’t. It’s not real. This isn’t real. She loves him too much for him to be gone.

Her mother had been sitting in the parlor knitting, something she always seems to be doing, and Emma was gardening by the front gate, something she always seems to be doing as well.

(The senior Mr. Jones is no longer around to work, replaced by new grounds-keep, but everyone always seems to forget the flowers in the front. Killian never did, and neither will Emma.)

Everything had been normal, happy, and when Emma saw Will Scarlet walking toward their front gate, she thought nothing of it other than that he was here to see Belle. The two of them have been courting, so he’s been around quite often. But the melancholy look on his face immediately told her that he was not at the house to see the woman he fancied, and when he very quietly told Emma that there had been an accident, her heart plummeted into her stomach as her legs crumpled under her dress.

No.

No.

_No._

The scream she emitted still echoes in her mind, the shrill hoarseness and utter heartbreak written there, but nothing will ever compare to the way her mother had collapsed when she heard the news. Her mother, who despite all of her shortcomings in understanding that Emma does not want to be a proper lady whose only purpose in life is to serve her husband, is a wonderful woman full of strength, love, and hope for a good life. Her mother who Emma very much loves and her mother who was very much in love with her father.

Emma thought Killian leaving to provide for himself was the hardest day, was a loss that nothing could be compared to, but there is nothing as eternal as death.

Mary Margaret Nolan, a woman who has done nothing in her life except love everyone around her, especially her beloved husband, David Nolan, lost everything on a day that was just like any other.

The love her parents have for each other…or rather the love that they had, is the love that Emma always strived for. When she went into town or talked with her school friends about their parents, most of them talked of them sleeping in different bedrooms or not talking at the breakfast table. Many even mentioned the maids that their fathers would sleep with.

Not David and Mary Margaret Nolan.

They always slept in the same bedroom, in the same bed actually, and as long as her father was not traveling for work, they sat next to each other at the breakfast table chatting and laughing and being genuinely happy. Her father knew how her mother took her tea, and her mother knew that her father enjoyed having the hair at his neck scratched.

It was genuine love in a world where marrying someone of equal or better stature is more important than marrying someone who makes you happy, and their love is exactly why Emma grew up believing in it, even if she did have a few doubts about it all.

Just because she is the product of genuine love doesn’t mean she was guaranteed to find it.

But she did, and he’s gone now as well.

The loss of the two most wonderful men in her life has painted the blue sky gray, but today, her paintbrush is covered in black.

Her beloved papa is dead, and all she wants in this world is to hold him and have him hold her as well, staying as the warm and steady presence who has guided her life.

-/-

“Mother, do you want to go for a ride this afternoon?”

Emma asks the question, but she doesn’t get much of a reply, a non-committal hum as Mary Margaret stirs her tea in her cup and picks at her muffin that Granny baked for them this morning.

“I think it sounds like a wonderful idea,” Emma sighs, grabbing a muffin herself and plopping herself down on a stool at the kitchen table. “The weather is so nice outside today, and it’ll be good to get some exercise in – for us and the horses. We can even take a picnic. You can pick a book, and I’ll read it to you.”

There’s still no reply, her mother’s focus on her tea intense, and it’s starting to grate on Emma’s nerves. It’s been three months since her father died, and while it has been anything but easy, a bit of color is repainted into their lives every day.

But damn if Emma isn’t tired of playing the part of a proper daughter when her mother sometimes doesn’t even pay attention to her. It’s usually only in the mornings, Mary Margaret returning to her normal chipper self as the sun continues to rise in the sky, and even if it is selfish, Emma would like to be able to do something happy for once.

Today is already a particularly hard day for her as she received news that Liam Jones had been married, and she did not receive an invitation to the wedding. It’s fine, not that big of an insult, except that Liam once worked for them and lived on their property.

Oh, and the fact that Liam Jones very much knows that Emma was involved with his brother.

No one else knew except for Liam and possibly Emma’s maid, Ruby, as her parents forbade her to court with anyone they did not pick for her – which very much seems the opposite of what they should have done with their true love – and she expected to at least receive an invitation to the wedding ceremony.

That is not what hurts her, however. What hurts her is the thought of Killian being within miles of her and not coming to see her.

How could he do that?

Emma is not even sure that he was there, she has no reason to think that he wouldn’t come to see her, but her mind has begun to imagine every scenario. Over the months, she has told herself that she will not think of how sad missing Killian makes her because the pain of the loss of her father is worse, and yet thoughts of him still manages to creep into the corners of the pages of her mind.

So, today she needs her mother to be her mother, to be her friend. She needs the two of them to have a nice day together and then maybe return home and invite Granny and Ruby to sit with them at dinner.

Ruby has been her closest companion throughout everything, and if she can make Mary Margaret laugh in the way that she makes Emma laugh, it will be a good dinner indeed.

“Mother? Shall I go prepare the horses?”

Mary Margaret finally blinks up at her, her lips downturned, and Emma’s heart sinks into her stomach once more. It may as well take up permanent residence there lately. This morning is very obviously a bad one for her mother.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret sighs, placing her cup of tea down onto the table, “I have something I need to tell you.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes – I mean, no.” Her mother sighs again before straightening her back and plastering a very obviously forced smile on her face. “I received notice two days ago that we could lose the house and all of the land. I don’t know how this slipped my mind, but it did. I was too…after I…my mind has been muddled with other thoughts, and I didn’t think about the fact that we are not allowed to own land.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re women, sweetheart.”

The words click in Emma’s mind, and while her heart has still dropped, it’s beating much more quickly now. The realization as to what her mother is saying causes rage to boil inside of her, and suddenly riding off into the woods on her horse sounds like the best option for her to do.

“No,” Emma protests, shaking her head as she angrily rips the covering on the muffin before tossing the pieces onto the table. “Fuck no.”

“Language,” Mary Margaret gasps as if that is the worst thing to be happening in this moment.

“What at all does my language matter, Mummy?” Emma groans, slapping her hands against her thighs before curling her fingers around the material of her dress so that her knuckles turn white. “What does it matter about being proper when we are going to lose our home simply because we were not born as men? What about a cock makes a man superior to me?”

“Emma!”

Emma rolls her eyes, knowing that she’s probably mortifying her mother but not caring. Her mother knows that Emma is right, but the language is obviously what is doing her in.

“We can’t lose the house. We can’t. There has to be some way. Papa’s memory is painted all over this place. When I walk into this kitchen, I see the two of you smiling and talking to each other as you drink your tea. When I go into the study, I see him reading me a book, using all of his voices to make me laugh even if it made you roll your eyes. When I walk up the stairs and my foot touches the step that creaks, I remember him telling me that it was simply the house speaking back telling me how glad it was that we were all home. I can’t – we can’t – ”

The words disappear from her as a sob overwhelms her, clogging her throat and making the air escape from her body. She can’t breathe. She can’t. It’s too hard to breathe in the air of this home and the familiar smell that is so uniquely her family because soon she will not be able to breathe in this scent.

No. No. _No._

Tears sting in her eyes, and while she manages to regain some air flow, everything that she sees is through the tear-stained lenses that her mother has been wearing for months now.

How is it that she has already lost nearly everything and yet the feelings of anguish do not come until now?

Slight arms wrap around her, and Emma would know the slight arms of her mother anywhere. She would know that scent of her, the warmth. She would know everything, and despite the fact that Emma is going to ruin her mother’s dress, she presses her face into her shoulder and sobs as Mary Margaret runs her hands up and down Emma’s back.

“We’re not going to lose the house, Emma,” she promises. “There are ways around it.”

“What possible ways are there around it? We cannot suddenly become men.”

“But I can marry one.”

Emma’s head immediately rises from her mother’s shoulder, and after blinking away the tears, she finally sees the way her mother’s cheeks are faintly stained with the path of tears this morning as well.

“Mummy, no,” Emma protests, reaching up to cup her mother’s cheeks. “You can’t.”

Mary Margaret sadly nods her head. “I have to. It’s not love, but it will be a way for us to keep the house. I have already found a man, a wealthy man, who is willing, and I – ”

“I’ll get married,” she blurts out, the words rolling off of her tongue without her realizing the repercussions of them. “I am getting older. I’d have to be married soon anyhow, and I am the heir to the Nolan estate. If I’m married, it goes to my husband, and we can keep the house and have a place to live. You loved Papa too much to marry someone else, especially when you still sleep with his shirts.”

Emma thought the only man she would ever marry would be Killian, but if these are their options, Emma will be the one to make the sacrifice.

Killian may never come back anyhow. It’s been years, and the waiting may never end.

Saving her mother is the most important thing right now.

Saving her family.

-/-

The man she is to marry is named Neal Cassidy, son of banker Robert Cassidy.

He is perfectly nice, if not boring and a tad bit too…brutish for Emma. He’s not harsh or violent, of course, but he does believe that a woman is better to be seen and not heard. To him, she is nothing but a pretty thing to keep on his arm, and Emma knows it. It sends a shiver down her spine and makes her blood heat in her veins, but there is nothing she can do about it.

This is the only way to save their home and to save her mother from more heartbreak.

If she has to marry Neal Cassidy, she will.

They will probably never be in love, but she doesn’t want to be in love with him. And as long as she is able to spend time with her mother and her friends without him keeping her away, that is fine with her.

It is not the life she grew up imagining, but life never does seem to go to the plan of a woman when the world is designed for them not to be treated the same as a man.

-/-

The lawyers and bankers give them an additional two months of staying in the house when they find out Emma is engaged to be married. It’s not much, but it’s more than enough as summer fades away and the leaves begin to change colors before falling to the ground. The blue skies that were around all summer, filling Emma with the slightest bit of hope, have morphed into the shades of gray she was imagining.

Her imagination has very much become her reality as Ruby and her mother tie her corset to make Emma lose all of her breath with her ribs being crushed so tightly.

She never has been one to wear a corset on a daily basis, and on the occasions that she does, it is usually miserable.

Today, on her wedding day, it is much worse.

That also may have to do with how much Emma doesn’t want to get married, but she is holding that secret closer to her heart.

The dress she is wearing is long and covered in white satin with a bit of lace that falls off of her sleeves. Every bit of her is covered, which feels unnatural, and autumn flowers of colors orange and yellow are threaded into the plait of her hair as makeup is painted onto her skin and her lips. She looks beautiful even if she doesn’t feel that way, and she’s sure that everyone at the church will think the same.

It does not matter to her, but it matters to society.

After all of her preparations are finished, including a conversation about the marriage bed that Emma most definitely does not need to have with her mother, the two of them load up into the carriage that Mr. Cassidy has provided for them and begin their ride to the church in the center of town. Emma stares out the window the entire time, watching buildings and people go by, and while she knows that it’s not true, she feels as if her own freedom is disappearing when this is the only way for her to keep that freedom.

Reaching for her mother, Emma intertwines their fingers and squeezes, needing reassurance and a reminder of why she’s doing this, before looking out the window again.

And that’s when she sees _him_.

“Stop the carriage,” Emma screams out to the driver up front, and within seconds the horses slow down in their speed, the gravel not crunching as loudly underneath their hoofs.

“Emma, what are you doing?”

“I,” she starts, but she doesn’t know the words to finish her sentence. “I need to get some fresh air outside of the carriage.”

“We’ll be late for the wedding.”

_Damn the wedding_ , she thinks.

“I’ll only be a moment,” she says instead before opening the carriage door and stepping out on her own, knowing that she’s stepped on her gown.

He hasn’t seen her yet, but she’s most definitely seen him.

He’s…different than before. His shoulders are much broader, the body under his clothes obviously more muscled, and the angle of his jawline is sharp enough to cut skin. He’s also covered in scruff. He used to be before, of course, but it was more in patches and his father would often make him shave. His hair is shorter, more clean cut, and she likes the way that it looks over the top of his Naval uniform.

And with everything that’s different, she knows that the blue of his eyes and the brightness of his smile are going to be the same. How could they ever be diminished?

“Killian,” she whispers, her voice unable to get any louder than that.

If it were anyone else, she knows that he wouldn’t have heard her, but he turns to look at her with parted lips and widened eyes that have tears already forming in Emma’s.

This is all a dream. It has to be. It’s been nearly seven years now, and while she had received letters years ago, ones she had passed off as being nothing more than friendly communication, she has never been able to send one in return since his location seemed to always be changing. She always sent them anyways, hoping that he would somehow receive one, but she had no indication that he ever did.

She was always too afraid to ask Liam.

“Emma.”

His voice is exactly the same, still that low, deep timber, and it sends shivers down her spine as she picks up the bottom of her dress and walks forward until she’s colliding into the firmness of his body, her arms wrapping around his neck and his arms wrapping around her waist. He’s different. His body feels and smells different, but there is an undeniable warmth that could never change and could never be replicated.

“Did you miss me?” Killian chuckles into her neck, his breath warm against her skin, and it only makes her embrace him more tightly.

She cannot breathe, and there is no telling if that’s because of how undeniably ecstatic she is or if it is because of the corset she’s wearing.

The corset.

Underneath her wedding dress.

Oh fuck.

She’s supposed to be getting married in under an hour.

Can she even do that anymore?

“Every single day of my life, it feels like,” she whispers back, pulling back so that her hands can cup his cheeks, fingers tracing underneath his eyelids so that she can study him. There’s a scar on his cheek now. That wasn’t there before. “Where have you been?”

“Everywhere, I believe,” he laughs, that same wonderful laugh. “I’ve been in America for the past two years, but I was in France for a little while, Denmark before that. It’s been a whirlwind, Emma, and I want to tell you about it all later. I – ”

His eyes seem to finally take in her appearance – the makeup, intricate hair, white veil, and the very telling white gown that she very much wishes would burn up into flames right now for the way that it makes the blue of Killian’s eyes dull into a gray that she never wants to see again.

“I,” he repeats, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, “I returned home yesterday. Liam has gotten married a few months prior, you see, and he’s offered me work in the shipping business that his wife’s father owns. I wanted to come and see you as fast as I could, but then…I heard about your father, love. I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes flutter, lashes blinking away the tears, and Emma can practically feel her mother’s gaze on her behind her back.

“I am as well,” Emma sighs, her happiness continuing to fade away. “I miss him every day.”

“I imagine you’d want him here today especially.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Killian blinks his eyes closed, his long, dark lashes landing against his tanned cheeks before he shakes his head the slightest bit. “Why, it is apparently your wedding day, my love.”


	2. Part Two

“Why, it is apparently your wedding day, my love.”

If it were possible for a heart to shatter and still pump blood through a body, that is exactly what Killian would be experiencing right now. For there is no way that he has died even if an angel is standing in front of him in a white gown that flows off of her arms and golden hair that creates a flowery halo around her head with the sun shining down on it.

_Emma._

Emma with yellow flowers tucked into her hair.

(He used to pick her yellow weeds, and she’d tuck them behind her ear and into her plaits. He’d often find the broken petals of them in his own clothes after they’d spent a day together.)

Emma has never looked more beautiful than she does right now, and Killian is very much convinced that it is an impossibility for her to not look beautiful. In his twenty-six years of life, she is the most stunning woman he has ever laid his eyes upon as well as the most intelligent, witty, and kind even if she does have a propensity for teasing him in her harsh, yet weirdly affectionate ways.

She’s never been one to be proper, and he always loved the dirtiness of some of her quips even if they were not always entirely correct. Those might have been the most charming as he taught her the correct usage of certain terms and phrases over their time together.

He has not seen her in nearly seven years now, and while she was a girl when he left for the Navy and he only one day past becoming a man, she is very much a woman now. He believes she should be nearly twenty-four now. Her face has matured, the sharp lines filling into softer ones, and simply from their embrace, he can tell that the same has happened with her body. It’s odd to look at someone who he once knew better than himself and to see all of the differences there, and a part of him wonders if he would have noticed all of these changes had he been around to see them happen in person.

Of course he would have.

Of course, of course, of course.

But he wasn’t here to see the changes, to go through them with her, and in the depths of his soul he wonders just how much she’s had to grow in the past few months of grieving the death of her father.

His poor love. How he wishes that he could have held her through that moment and all of the moments that he has missed while he’s been away from her.

Even if he did not mourn the death of his own father, the drunk who never cared about he and Liam unless it was to help work around the Nolan estate so that they could earn money for him to gamble away, Killian knows how close of a bond Emma had with David. She looked at him like he created the skies above and believed that he could, and for him to no longer be around is a tragedy that words cannot encapsulate.

Now David does reside in the stars in the sky, and as little comfort as that likely brings, Killian wishes that it does provide some sense of help to the Nolan women who are the fiercest women he’s ever had the pleasure of knowing.

If Killian could go back, if he could not enlist in the Royal Navy so that he could stay as a groundskeeper for the Nolan estate, he might. If it meant being able to spend more time with Emma and possibly to prevent David from getting in the carriage that caused his accident, Killian would do it. He would do it even if it meant that he never made anything of himself, if it meant that he was never able to raise his status from poor man to a Naval lieutenant with a good job lined up ahead of him.

Even if it meant that he could never marry Emma. He would save David every time.

For Emma.

The only reason he ever joined the Navy was to prove to Emma’s parents that he could be worthy of her hand in marriage, and yet it seems that it was all for naught.

She has fallen for another man, one who was likely around to court her and make her blush with happiness, and how could he ever fault her for finding that little bit of happiness when that is all he has wished for her over these years where he has waited for her and waited for his chance to come home?

If Emma is happy, he will be happy for her. It is the very least he can do despite the shattering of his heart that he swears he can feel within every inch of him.

His body and soul have been captivated by her, and that shall never change.

Bloody hell. He’s a damn liar, but he has to keep telling himself these things to remain sane.

“W-what?” Emma stutters out, that adorable little smile that she used to smile whenever he would tell her a dirty joke that was anything but proper.

(His tended to be more accurate than she was, but they both learned along the way in the tall grass out by the lake. Her skin glistened in the sunlight, and her laugh was as beautiful as the songs of the birds.)

“Your dress,” he continues, swallowing his emotions as his hands gesture to the pure white of her gown and the veil mixed into her hair with orange and yellow flowers. “You are getting married today, aren’t you? Or is this dress simply your casual attire now?”

Emma’s painted lips form a perfectly shaped “O” and if he didn’t feel close to death, he would find it adorable.

This may very well be the hardest day or his life even when his story used to be chapter after chapter of hardships sloppily penned on tattered pages that would eventually burn down to ashes.

“I am.”

Her voice sounds somber, but Killian convinces himself that it is all in his imagination. It must be. Why would she not be happy to be married? The Nolans set such a good example of love for Emma, for him too, and he imagines the man waiting for Emma in his nicest morning suit is likely the love of her life who treats her well – like an equal partner in their decisions and affections – and makes her smile more than anything else. He doesn’t see Emma getting married any other way as she’s never been one for status even if her parents were.

Love. Emma would only ever marry for love. Mary Margaret would want it to be a man of a particular station, but love would be involved.

God, Killian loves her still.

“Best wishes then,” Killian sighs, taking a step back from her so that he can attempt to breathe, but all that does is give him a fuller view of Emma in her dress. In his nights alone imagining himself back home in England, he’d often imagine his life with Emma. Her wearing a white dress, one likely simpler than this, was a common dream, and the reality is no less breathtaking. She is breathtaking. “You are stunning, Ms. Nolan.”

Emma’s lips press together, her brows furrowing with her forehead pinching to cause that little line in the middle of her face that he always enjoyed even if it meant that she was frustrated.

Why would she be frustrated?

It must be his imagination again.

(He used to love frustrating her.)

(“You frustrate the hell out of me, Killian Jones,” she’d say, shoving his shoulder.)

(“Well, there are ways we could work out those frustrations,” he’d tease back before gently cupping her cheeks and kissing her.)

“I – ” she starts.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret calls, stepping out of the carriage to walk toward the two of them in a pretty green dress. She looks so much like Emma but with all of the wrong coloring, and he swears that she hasn’t aged a day. “Have you gotten enough air? We really have to be – oh,” she sighs, stopping when she sees him, mouth agape. “Killian Jones, is that you?”

“Aye, ma’am,” he smiles, stepping up to her with a genuine smile on his face before taking her hand to brush his lips over her knuckles. “It’s nice to see you. My regrets for Mr. Nolan. He was a good man.”

“He was the _best_ man,” Mary Margaret corrects, a bit of a wry smile on her face. Emma has always thought that her mother was too demure, but underneath the perfectly proper façade is a bit of a rebel. He can tell even if she has obviously worked hard to bury it underneath her dresses and jewels. Those who were raised outside of society never quite fit in the way they want to, no matter how much they try. “How are you doing? How is your brother?”

“Liam’s just been married,” he sighs. “I wasn’t able to take leave for the ceremony. Were the two of you not invited? I’ll have to get onto him about that. I’m sure he’d have loved for you to be there.”

Mary Margaret laughs, her green eyes squinting in a way that is an exact replica of Emma when she laughs a genuine laugh, and it makes his heart ache for her even if she is standing right behind him.

How is he missing her more now when he was once an ocean away from her?

There were nights in his bunk on the ship where the ache of missing her was so great that his heart convulsed, that he wondered if he’d ever be able to recover. There were days in his stations, in his travels across the globe where he’d see a flash of long blonde hair and think it was her. He’d wish and hope and pray. And on the rare nights where he had a room to himself, when his mates had wandered to find the company of another woman, he’d take himself in hand and imagine it were her, imagine that the soft sighs came from her lips. They weren’t his proudest moments, but they happened all the same.

(He could punch Emma’s betrothed, whoever he is, for loving her, but Killian knows that isn’t right.)

“It’s perfectly okay. I’m afraid we didn’t send he and his new bride an invitation to Emma’s wedding, which we really must be leaving for now. Emma, dear, we cannot leave the Cassidy’s waiting.”

The name Cassidy sets his blood aflame as he pieces together who Emma’s groom is, but this is not Killian’s place. It has never been his place, and it most definitely is not now. He must not voice his distaste for the senior Mr. Cassidy nor the junior, for the way that they are known to treat their tenants and those under their employ as well as the junior Mr. Cassidy’s penchant for brothels, so he bites his tongue until the taste of iron fills his mouth.

Emma is no longer his. That’s something he must accept.

His throat constricts, and Killian tries to swallow all of it down while his vision blurs. 

“Well, I’m afraid I must let you go then.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Mrs. Nolan offers, her eyes glancing past his shoulder when she presumably hears Emma’s intake of breath.

“Mummy,” Emma scolds, and his heart drops a little further in his chest at her tone. “I don’t think Killian wants to come with us. He likely has other things to do to bide his time.”

He doesn’t. All he planned on doing today was to pay his respects for the late Mr. Nolan and to see if Emma would be willing to have a cup of tea with him so that they may get to know each other again. All he planned to do today was tell her how very much he stills loves her, but now he knows that he will never be able to utter those words again.

Never one for conventions, even he knows that it would not be the gentlemanly thing to do to express his love for a taken woman.

This is what Killian must accept.

And yet he very obviously despises himself for what he does next.

“I could never deny your invitation, Lady Nolan. I would love to accompany the two of you to the church.”

“Perfect,” Mary Margaret sighs, motioning back to the carriage. “I’m afraid we must go now. We’re running late." 

Killian nods his head, forces a smile onto his face, and then quickly walks toward the carriage door to hold it open and help the women inside. When Emma’s hand touches his, he feels a spark that burns him instead of exciting him, and the drumline playing in his chest increases in sound until she’s settled down on a cushioned seat and he across from her. She won’t look at him. He’s sitting directly across from him, and she won’t look at him. Her eyes evade his, her gaze consistently trained to the empty seat beside him, and if it wasn’t for her mum sitting next to her, Killian would lose his control and ask what exactly is happening.

How is it that the day that he has returned to Emma that she is leaving him?

If he had come the day before, if he had not spent his day with Liam and Elsa celebrating them and their new marriage, would he have been able to stop this wedding?

No, he can’t. Those are thoughts he can’t have even if his mind is full of them.

Fuck.

While he hoped that the church was further away, that he would have more time to accept this – not that he ever could – the church is near enough for them to arrive in under fifteen minutes. They are both the quickest and longest fifteen minutes of Killian’s life.

When the horses halt, the carriage juts forward, causing Emma to lose her stable seating and fall forward into him, her hands pressing against his thighs. All sounds seem to stop then, all sensations focusing on her touch, and when he glances away from her dainty fingers, all he can see is the watery green of her eyes under her black painted lashes.

Has she been crying?

“I-I apologize,” Emma stutters out, her voice a shell of herself, before snatching her hands away and smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her gown. “I seem to have lost my seating.”

“No need to apologize, love.”

She’s no longer looking at him, their brief eye contact disappearing, and Killian takes it as an unspoken demand for him to get out of the carriage. He listens, moving to open the door, and steps outside and down the steps, waiting there to help the women down. No more words are spoken, and he wonders if he’ll ever speak to Emma again. He thought that for years, but with her right in front of him, he thought…he thought he had a chance.

_She’s moved on_ , Killian reminds himself. _This is not about you, you bastard._

There are unfamiliar ladies waiting on the Nolans that he suspects are from the Cassidy household, and Emma and Mary Margaret are shuffled off with them inside of a side door to the church while he’s left standing there watching the imprints of Emma’s shoes in the ground and wondering if her feet are still so sensitive to touch that she laughs whenever fingers run across them.

The light that shone brightly enough to bring him back home is getting married, and he’s about to witness it.

No.

He cannot. He damn well cannot.

As much as he says that he’s always wanted Emma’s happiness, as much as he does actually want Emma’s happiness, Killian’s not sure that his heart can take this. It is one thing to know that she is marrying Neal Cassidy, and it is another to witness it. He cannot possibly witness this. Every time he closes his eyes, his mind is already going to remember the way that she looks in her wedding dress, and that is enough of a painful memory for him. He does not need to watch her join her life to someone else who isn’t him.

Would she honestly even realize that he’s not in the church?

Selfishness is running through him, but he’d be a damn fool to wait around and watch this when he’s been a damn fool to wait around this entire time.

Swallowing all of his emotions, the ones that he cannot show, Killian turns on his heel and starts walking away from the church only to see Ruby Lucas walk in front of him. She looks just the same as well, if not a bit more wild with painted streaks of red in her raven hair, and the grin that’s painted on her face when she sees him makes his heart ache the slightest bit less. She was always willing to turn a blind eye, to look away from he and Emma spending time together in the kitchen, and Killian considered her a close friend.

Emma did too.

It’s nice that she’ll be here for the wedding.

“As I live and breathe,” Ruby huffs out, placing her hands on her hips while looking up at him with a sparkle in her eyes, “it’s Killian Jones.”

“Ms. Lucas.”

“Absolutely not,” she scoffs before pressing forward to wrap him in a brief hug. “You know how much I despise being called that.”

“That’s exactly why it’s what I called you, lass.”

“You’re still a tease. What on earth are you doing here?”

The momentary distraction of seeing Ruby dissipates, and he’s reaching up to scratch behind his ear, wondering how the hell he’s still alive to survive this when he could lose his lunch any minute now.

“Ah, well,” Killian starts, “I was on my way to the Nolan estate to give my condolences for Mr. Nolan’s passing, as well as to – ”

He stops his speech, not sure how much to tell, but the way that Ruby’s eyes stare up at him full of pity lets him know that he doesn’t need to. She knows. Of course she does. But he doesn’t want pity. He has been looked at with pity all of his life, and now, even if he’d pity someone in the same situation as him, Killian doesn’t want it. 

“I’m sorry, Ruby,” he chokes out, stepping away from her and down the path that will lead him back into the main part of town. “I’m afraid I must take my leave.”

Not bothering to look behind him, Killian officially starts walking away, knowing that it’s the most difficult walk he’s ever had to take. The first was leaving Emma seven years ago with tears staining her cheeks and a tremble in her lips. He’ll always remember how she looked that day just as he will remember how she looked today.

“If” does not exist in life, what happens being inked in the pages of everyone’s stories, but Killian will always wonder “what if?”

What if it was him waiting inside of that church for Emma instead?

What if he had never had to leave to raise his status so that he could marry her?

What if he had been born into a more noble family, one with money and land and everything that Emma deserves?

What if she still loved him the way that he loves her?

“She doesn’t love him, you know.”

Pebbles move beneath his feet when Killian’s steps come to a halt, his toes nearly causing him to fall forward and down to the ground while his heart beats wildly in his chest like there is a pack of horses running inside instead of an organ vital for life.

She doesn’t love who? She doesn’t love Neal?

He dare not hope. No, he cannot.

“What?” Killian questions, swallowing his breath and his pride but never turning to look at Ruby as she speaks.

“Emma doesn’t love Mr. Cassidy, Killian. She’s not marrying him for love.”

No.

Never.

Emma would never marry someone if it wasn’t for love. The Nolans may be a family of status who are concerned with etiquette and keeping up appearances, but they would never allow Emma to marry someone who she didn’t love or who wouldn’t treat her as the true force of nature that she is. They simply wouldn’t.

Mary Margaret wouldn’t, especially after losing the love of her life at such a premature age.

No.

Killian’s fingers curl into his palm, nails leaving crescent moon marks in his skin, and it takes the strength of every muscle in his body to turn around to look at Ruby so that he can see her as she speaks. His uniform feels constricting at the moment, like it is going to suffocate him, but maybe just maybe he’s about to start being able to breathe again.

Hope rises quickly and yet he knows that it can be squashed just the same.

“She doesn’t love him, Killian,” Ruby repeats, stepping closer to him so that the people around them cannot hear. “She hasn’t loved anyone in all of the time that you’ve been gone. Her parents tried. Suitor after suitor would come to the house, but after they left, Emma would always compare them to you. I don’t think she even realized that she did it, but she did.”

The scowl that’s been plastered on his lips twitches a bit, a smile trying to break through, but Emma is still inside about to get married to a man that she does not love. There is nothing about that which makes him smile.

“Then why is she marrying that bastard?”

“Because society is corrupt and does not allow women to keep what is theirs.”

Killian arches a brow, confusion coursing through him. “Pardon?”

“Without Mr. Nolan,” Ruby explains, fidgeting with the sleeves on her dress, “Emma and Mary Margaret aren’t allowed to keep the estate because they are women. Mary Margaret was going to marry someone else, some man she didn’t know but who was willing to take a widowed woman, and Emma refused, saying that she had just lost her husband and that no one could ever replace him. That’s why she’s marrying Neal. It’s to save the house and all of the memories that reside there. It’s not for love.”

Every word Ruby speaks is a brick pressing down on his shoulders before they are lifted as his mind takes it all in. How did he not even consider this? In the back of his mind, Killian recalls hearing that abominable law and seeing it happen to others before, but it did not once cross his mind when he heard of David’s accident and passing.

Everything about this day is a tragedy even if Emma is trying to be the savior of her family.

Saviors deserve happiness too.

“It’s a business transaction then?” Killian questions before brushing his hair off of his forehead, a small laugh escaping his lips. “It’s not for love?”

“Not at all.”

“And, um,” he stutters as excitement inches over his body and his toes start to bounce off of the ground, ready to run into the church, “this law that prevents Emma from keeping the house and their livelihood…she can marry any man, correct? It doesn’t have to be one of a particularly high nobility?”

“I think so, but why does it – ” Ruby stops her words, an effervescent grin breaking out onto her face, and she reaches forward to tug on his hand. “Come on, let’s go inside and stop this wedding.”

The two of them run inside like they are mad. Maybe they are. Ruby leads him through the back doorway to where Emma is apparently waiting while the rest of the guests arrive. His heart is beating so quickly that he cannot feel it anymore, the ringing sound in his head blocking everything out, and when Ruby opens a wooden door in the back of the church to show Emma sitting alone in a room, he nearly falls to the ground.

“Killian,” she gasps, wiping away at her eyes from where tears have obviously been falling, “what are you doing back here?”

He takes seven steps forward until he is right in front of her, the boots of his uniform nearly brushing against her dress before he kneels to the ground and places his hands on hers, holding her how he’s wished to for so long.

“Marry me, Emma.”


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where the "M" rating comes in 😉

Emma has a rather excellent understanding of the English language, even if there is much that confuses her and much to learn, but the two words that Killian has just spoken seem almost foreign. It’s odd, especially because she heard them once before not two months ago, but there is something entirely different about hearing them now and hearing his voice be the one to say them.

_Marry me._

Killian has asked her to marry him with wet tears covering the blue of his eyes and a slight shake to his voice that she recognizes as someone being hopeful and scared all at once.

She would know. That was her when she saw him walking the roads less than an hour ago. This day feels like a dream and a nightmare mixed into one, and if she pinches herself hard enough, maybe she’ll wake up and it’ll all be over.

Emma grabs her skin in between two fingers. Nothing happens. Killian is still there. She’s still in a wedding dress.

Her heart is still pounding.

_Marry me, Emma._

They are words she imagined hearing from him many a time, but nothing would compare to this. Nothing would compare to the way that she feels, the way that her tears continue to fall over warmed, rosy cheeks and her hands shake. She has never been one to believe that women must be married to be worth something, despite the situation that she currently finds herself in, but she has always been one to believe that being in love with the right person changes everything.

After agreeing to marry Neal, she never thought she would have that love, not the way that she felt about Killian despite how young they were, and yet here he is kneeling in front of her asking for her hand in marriage.

It is exhilarating and heart wrenching all at once, and Emma has no idea how to respond when she is already in a wedding dress set to marry someone else in fewer than ten minutes.

She wants to. She needs to, but she doesn’t know how the Cassidy family will handle this if she doesn’t go through with the wedding. There have been so many arrangements and agreements and…

“Killian…”

“Marry me,” he repeats, his blue eyes shining even more brightly than they were outside. “Emma, please. I know we do not know much about each other now, that we have grown and changed in ways that I cannot even begin to list, but I still love you. I always, always want to be by your side…if you’ll have me.”

“Killian, I can’t. I’m engaged to another man. I’ll lose the house. Mother and I will. I – ”

“I know. I know, darling. Ruby told me all about it outside, but don’t you see? You’re marrying Neal so that you can save your home. If you marry me, the same thing can happen. I can’t support you financially the way that he can, but I can support your hopes and wishes and all of the desires of your heart. There’s no need for you to enter into a loveless marriage when I’ve come home right in time.”

“Killian – ”

“Do you still love me?”

“What?”

“Do you still love me?”

Emma blinks, and she’s sure the black ink on her eyelashes is falling onto her skin, marking it and showing her tears. After these past few months, how does she have any left?

In truth, she doesn’t know if she still loves him. Emma is unsure if her affections are real and true or if they’re all rooted in memories of the time when she did love him. But she was so young then, so naïve and inexperienced in life, and can she truly love someone she hasn’t seen in nearly seven years?

Could she break Killian’s heart by not answering his question?

Could she break her own?

For so many years she’s been sure that she still loved him, held onto him like he is her favorite book in the library, but now that she’s faced with the question, her answer isn’t definite.

“I don’t know.”

His face doesn’t change, the desperate, hopeful smile staying, but his hands do squeeze hers until gooseflesh appears across her body. “That’s alright, darling. It’s been a long time. We’ve changed. Feelings can change.”

“I don’t mean – I don’t know what you want me to say to you because I do – ”

“Nothing, my love,” he whispers, releasing her hand to brush his thumb under her eye before tucking her hair behind her ear. He’s caressing her cheek, and she could melt into it. “I expect nothing of you, but I’d like you to listen to me, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Emma nods as her stomach churns.

“Don’t marry Neal. Don’t do it if you don’t love him. You can marry me, Emma. You may not love me any longer, but I know that there are still feelings there, that they could grow. I also know that if I am lucky enough to have your hand in marriage, I can keep your family’s estate. I’ll also give you your space and treat you well. You can do whatever your heart desires. I have no expectations of you like Neal will. You will be my equal, and even if we don’t fall in love again, that will never change. I will never force your hand.”

“You are kind of forcing my hand right now,” she jokes.

Killian chuckles and leans down to press his forehead into her lap while she tentatively runs her hand through his hair. It’s softer than it was but no less thick. This is insane. None of this makes any sense to her, and it has to be a dream.

Emma has already pinched herself and felt the pain. This is real.

“This will be the only time,” Killian promises. “After this, it will be no more.”

Bringing her bottom lip between her teeth, Emma bites down, marking her teeth with the red paint. This corset is too tight. It’s too tight, and she can’t breathe.

She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. _She can’t breathe._

“Killian, find my mum and the priest. See if we can be married today or if we’ll have to fill out different paperwork for our marriage license. I don’t know how to tell Neal. I don’t - ”

“I’ll take care of it all, darling,” he speaks into her lap before pulling back and pressing his mouth to her cheek in a warm, wet kiss. She hasn’t felt so alive in months.

And then in a flash, he’s gone, the door hitting the wall behind him, and Emma’s left sitting alone in her dressing room with shaking shoulders and laughter that stems from deep in her belly and is working its way through her body.

She doesn’t have to marry Neal.

Killian is here.

She’s not going to be trapped.

“So,” a familiar voice says from the doorway, “looks like your lover boy arrived home just in time.”

Emma wipes a tear from underneath her eye and keeps laughing. “Ruby, he is not my lover.”

Ruby looks behind her before turning back and stepping into the room, a wolfish smirk painted on her lips. “Please, I knew what the two of you were up to out by the lake and in the gardens. The only people you were fooling were your parents.”

“Ruby,” Emma gasps, placing her hand over her chest. She cannot stop laughing. “We’re in a church!”

“Darling, if you don’t think people in this church talk about sex, you’re mistaken.”

“You are shameless.”

  
Ruby winks and steps into the room until she’s squatting in front of Emma and embracing her. “And you love me for that. Who else would give you all of the tips? Your mother? She was fumbling around with her advice this morning, so I don’t think she’d help by telling you that if you swivel your – ”

“Emma,” Mary Margaret gasps, and Ruby shuts up so quickly Emma isn’t sure she was ever speaking, “what is Killian going on about? What do you mean you’re not going to marry Neal? I thought you wanted to. I thought you were happy. We’ve made so many arrangements.”

Emma stands from her chair and walks over to her mother, gently placing her hands on Mary Margaret’s shoulders. “No, Mummy,” she admits, “I wasn’t happy. You know I was only doing this to save the house and to allow you to honor Papa by not having to marry again. I didn’t want to marry Neal. I don’t…Killian has offered to marry me, and I know he’s not the class that you want, that he doesn’t have the money, but I think he could actually make me happy.”

“Oh, my darling,” Mary Margaret sighs before cupping Emma’s cheeks, “that’s all I want for you. I promise. If I had known…I assumed you had grown to feel for Neal. I didn’t – ”

“It’s not your fault. I’m sorry for not being truthful.”

“It’s alright. I promise that it is. The entire town will be gossiping about us for months, but I couldn’t give a damn.”

“Mother!”

Mary Margaret giggles, actually giggles, and Emma hasn’t seen her mum smile like that since before they lost David. There’s something so refreshing about it, especially since they spent much of this morning skirting around the fact that David should be here for Emma’s wedding day, even if the circumstances are unusual and they wouldn’t be in this situation if he hadn’t passed, and Emma can’t help but giggle as well.

“No part of me is sorry,” her mum laughs. “We deserve happiness, and I will curse every blasted person who decides otherwise. Now where is this new groom of yours? I need to know if my daughter is getting married today or not.”

Killian comes back into the room with the priest no less than five minutes later, and his chest is visibly heaving. There’s also blood streaking across his face, and when Emma asks if Neal did that to him, he ignores her to tell her that they need to leave now and go and get a new license for marriage so that they can be married within two days. It’s a rush of emotions and thoughts, and Emma almost feels sorry for Neal when she sees him running after the carriage as she and Killian drive away.

He comes from a wealthy family, and he’ll easily find a wife that is much more to his liking. Emma would be too wild for him, and she knows that he wouldn’t like that.

She wouldn’t like him.

Still, he will likely try to hurt her for embarrassing him like this.

The next few hours are a rush. Emma is no longer sure of her directions or where she’s going or who is talking to her. Her heart is pounding, her cheeks inflamed, and life moves so quickly that before she knows it, it’s two days later and she’s standing in a pale pink dress with buttercups in her hair as Killian stands in front of her in his Naval uniform. Liam and his new wife have joined them at their home, Ruby and Granny too, and in front of those people, a priest, and her mum, Emma legally becomes bound to the man she once loved.

Killian Jones.

Killian Jones, the boy with blue eyes who became the man with a wicked smile and a kind heart.

The man who she cannot wait getting to know once more even with the consistent hum of her heart clouding her senses.

It’s slow and stilted at first. There was always so much passion between them, so much desire, that Emma thought they’d quickly crash together, especially after the kiss they shared at their wedding ceremony, warm and soft with the brush of stubble that set the blood in her veins aflame. Instead, but everything about it is measured. Emma knows this is because Killian would rather die than not be a gentleman to her.

She’s had enough men in her life dying, so she will take the gentleman every single day.

Even if it means a slow courting.

(It’s what her father would have wanted.)

Emma knows this is what she needs, but her emotions are erratic and inconsistent, and every day she both wants to be intimate with Killian while also screaming at him for leaving her all those years go. She’s always considered herself to be even-tempered, but there’s something about him…

Killian frustrates her.

But in all of the best ways.

He doesn’t move in immediately. His work isn’t particularly close to the estate, but after a few weeks of him traveling back and forth every few days, Killian settles into a guest room they have and works out of her father’s study. Everything about it is strange – from having someone she’s not accustomed to being in the house to her father’s study being occupied again after dust collected in it to wondering what exactly she and Killian are doing with each other.

What would her life be like if Killian hadn’t shown up when he did and she’d married Neal? The entire Cassidy family has tried to ruin her name lately, and she can’t say she blames them after she left Neal at the altar. She also can’t say she would have liked to be his wife.

What would her life be like if she and Killian had never separated before getting married? Would they still be sleeping in separate bedrooms? Would his fingers only lightly brush hers as they pass each other in the hallways or would their fingers twine together as they walk together, side by side?

There’s no use in silly questions like that, however, and despite the swell of thoughts ruminating within her, Emma moves on with her life like she always has instead of simply focusing on the man who shares her breakfast table.

In the mornings, they eat breakfast together, usually with just the two of them, but sometimes her mother joins them. Killian drinks coffee with no sugar, which she finds repulsing, while reading the paper, and she drinks her coffee full of creams and sugars and tends to talk with Ruby over plans for dinner. Occasionally Killian will comment with a tease of her eating habits, and like the lady she is, she sticks her tongue out at him. When he winks in response, Emma feels fire dig deep in her belly.

Killian often spends his entire day working, whether that be in the study or miles away at the docks, and Emma spends her days with her mother, reading, writing, and occasionally painting all the while she spends time in the gardens. Her horses have received extra care as of late, her rides lasting longer and longer into the evenings while the sky is cast in an orange glow, and after a month of taking her trail rides by herself, Killian asks if he may join her.

She says yes, half out of obligation and half out of wanting to know why the hell he continues to insist doing things in such a proper manner. They’re married. She has feelings for him, feelings that are verging on love now that they’ve spent time together, and they’ve been given this second chance.

What if the second chance were to slip through her fingers? What if another accident were to occur while Killian was out at work? What if she were no longer able to see him chewing on his pen in the middle of his work day or hear the lilt of his voice as he reads with her at night? What if –

“What would you like to do with your life, my darling?”

“Hmm?”

“Your life,” Killian repeats. Emma slows her horse down and inches closer to Killian so that she can hear him over the whistle of the wind and the tapping of hooves. It’s chilled outside, the late November weather coming in with a fury, and they’re both wrapped up in knitted coats and scarves. Killian has on a wide-brimmed hat to block out the winter sun, and the tip of his nose is reddened from the chill. “I want you to be happy with your choices, and I don’t want you to think that all I expect of you is to cook and clean and raise children. You’re my partner, and I think if you have a passion, you should pursue it.”

Emma stalls her horse until Killian’s stops as well. “You want to know what my passion is?”

“Aye.”

Emma’s cheeks heat, and she looks away out to the sunlight glinting off the water. “I’m not sure. I don’t – my parents, as progressive as they could be, never expected me to be more than a wife. All I know to do is run a household. I’ve always been terrible with arithmetic and…I don’t know.”

Killian arches a brow. “Certainly that’s not true, love. You’re excellent in the gardens, have a sharp wit, and I’ve managed to see a painting or two in your studio. You’re brilliant, Emma.”

“I most certainly am not.”

“You are.” His hand reaches over until he’s holding onto her palm. She can feel the warmth of him through their gloves. “I would hang your portraits across my entire home even if you weren’t my wife.”

“Liar.”

“I am not,” Killian gasps, mockingly. “I’m telling the truth. I think people would pay a true commission for your work, and I could go around telling everyone that my wife was the brilliant mind behind the artwork that fills the town.”

“Oh, so what? You’re only using me for money and bragging rights?”

“No,” he promises, before placing a delicate kiss on the back of her hand. Her heart is absolutely hammering. “I’m asking about your passions because I’m serious about you pursuing them. I’ll be working quite a bit for the next few years as I settle myself into the company, and as much as I fully plan on spending time with you and courting you properly, I want you to be happy outside of me.”

Emma hums and brushes her free hand over the mane sitting in front of her. There are so many things about the world that interest her, and she’s not sure what her passion is. Maybe it is one of the things Killian listed. Maybe it’s something else. She doesn’t know, but she would like to find out.

The fact that she’s getting an opportunity without having to punch through walls and scratch her nails against the metaphorical doors is nearly magical.

“I think,” she begins, “I’d like to get a few more supplies for painting, if that’s alright.”

“Like I’ve told you, whatever your heart desires, love. I promise that’s all I want you to have.”

“Painting,” Emma sighs, “definitely painting. And maybe to plant a flower garden near the lake once winter passes in honor of Papa. Oh, and more hot chocolate!”

Killian laughs and nods his head. “Anything else?”

“I think maybe I’d like you to speed up your courting of me. You wouldn’t want to go too slow. A girl might get anxious and move on.”

“Really now?”

“Mhm,” she says coyly as she kicks her horse in the side to get her to start moving, quickly heading away from Killian so that she has to yell as she rides away. “So you damn well better catch up.”

-/-

Killian takes her to shop for more paints and new brushes the next day.

He also kisses her within an inch of her life before bidding her a goodnight outside her bedroom door.

Emma goes to sleep with a saccharine smile on her lips and an ache between her thighs, and she’s not sure which thrills her more.

-/-

Once December begins, Emma and Mary Margaret fill their home with poinsettias and extra candles, adding new curtains and table cloths to each and every room. They convince Killian to go with them to the woods to find a Christmas tree like they always did with David, and while it’s not the same, it’s something. Her father may not be able to be here with them physically, but he’s still there.

He’d love Killian now even more than he did before. Of that, Emma is sure.

She’s also sure that she loves Killian now. It feels almost the same as before, like a constant thrill in her heart and gooseflesh on her skin, and her mind seems to drift to thoughts of him whether he’s in the same room as her or not.

It’s the middle of December, and the two of them are lounging in the sitting room, a fire roaring in front of them and white snow coating the ground outside. She has her head resting in Killian’s lap and a blanket tugged up over her while his hand rests on a bare inch of skin in between her blouse and the trousers she decided to wear today. His touch is as electrifying as always, and she feels it over every inch of her.

“Sometimes we’d celebrate the holidays,” Killian says, answering her question about his time in the Navy, “but it’d usually be delayed until we were on dry land. The most we could usually do was down a bottle of smuggled rum in our cabins, so it wouldn’t be like it is this year with gifts and spending time with our families.”

“That sounds lonely.”

“It could be.” His hand runs along her waist, sneaking up underneath her shirt until his palm is resting flat on her stomach. She tries not to let her breath hitch, to keep everything steady. “I much prefer being home with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely,” Killian promises, his accent dragging along on the words. “Nothing or no one is as lovely as you, and there’s no one I’d rather spend my holidays with than you.”

Emma’s cheeks must be as red as the curtains covering the windows. “Why’d you leave then? All those years ago? You could have stayed here. You didn’t have to join the Royal Navy.”

Killian sighs, and his hand stills against her stomach while he shifts his weight, looking away from her so that she can see the tick of his jaw from the underside. “Emma, as wonderful as your parents are, they never would have allowed me to court or marry you had I stayed under their employ. I wanted to better myself for you.”

“Killian – ”

He quickly looks down at her, lips pressed into the softest smile she’s ever seen and his blue eyes sparkle in the firelight. “I wanted to be good enough for you.”

Emma swallows the lump in her throat and blinks back tears as she shifts on the lounge until she’s slipping away from his touch. Killian coughs and reaches up to scratch behind his ear, obviously nervous, and she tugs his wrist away as she settles herself down on his lips, knees on either side of his thighs. Emma swears his eyes bulge at her touch, and Emma would laugh if she didn’t need Killian to know that she is serious about her next words.

Cupping his cheeks and feeling the rough brush of his beard against her palms, Emma leans forward to press her lips against Killian’s. He opens for her almost immediately with a small, surprised sigh, and she tastes chocolate and the slightest bit of spiced rum on his lips. He is everything to her, always has been, and she could lose herself in him forever.

“Killian Jones, my husband,” she speaks against his lips while their foreheads touch together and a pleasant heat swells over her, “you were always good enough for me, and I don’t want to hear a word protesting that.”

“Not a word?”

“Not a single world, not multiple words, no words. It is fact no matter what you may think. My heart has always been yours even when it wasn’t.”

His hand runs against her back, pulling her body closer to his, and Emma is sure Killian can hear her heart beating. She can feel his.

“Who knew you were one for romance, Mrs. Jones?”

“You did. You always have.” She kisses him again, quick and dirty, and Killian growls before chasing her lips. She doesn’t let him catch her. “I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to say it again.”

Killian’s lashes brush against hers when he blinks, and she can practically feel his smile in his words. “Please never apologize for your feelings. That is not…I am not…I love you in a way I never thought possible, Emma. I would have waited forever for you even if you never felt that way about me again.”

“It’s likely a good thing I only kept you waiting two months.”

His laugh is delightful and alights her body with joy until she’s laughing as well.

Before she knows it, Killian’s hands have slipped underneath her shirt once more, and she feels the warmth of his skin against her as he kisses her, soft and slow. Her mind is filled with thoughts and words and more conversation than two people can have in a night, but then Killian is groaning when he realizes that she’s been without any undergarments tonight and there are no thoughts other than those of her wanting him.

And loving him.

Emma can’t stop kissing him, can’t stop feeling the softness of his mouth and the skill of his tongue, and when his shirt lifts over his head, she can finally see the broad expanse of his chest and how it’s changed over the years. His muscles are slim but still defined, and the patches of black chest hair have grown in thicker and softer. She could run her hands through his hair for days.

But she can also feel where Killian wants her, where his manhood is pressing through his trousers and is warming her thigh, and though it’s been a long time and she’s married now, Emma feels the slightest fluttering of nerves hit in her belly. Killian seems to feel it too, seems to know what’s in her mind without her expressing the words out loud, and he pulls back from their kiss to look her in the eyes.

How is it possible for one man’s eyes to be so blue? She’s tried to paint them, but she can’t seem to find the right color.

It’s perfectly and undeniably him.

“Are you certain, Emma?” Killian whispers as the fire cracks behind them. “We don’t have to be intimate with each other now. I’m more than willing to wait.” Emma smirks and rolls her hips over Killian’s, feeling how much he doesn’t want to wait. When he hisses, she can barely hold back her laugh. “Bloody hell, love.”

All Emma has to say is, “I’m certain.”

Slowly, slowly, slowly she and Killian strip each other out of their remaining clothes. Every touch burns warmer than the fire and every kiss lights her skin like the moon shining through the window. Emma’s heart is pounding, nerves and anticipation and love filling her, and when Killian settles them both down on blankets on the floor, no part of her cares that she can feel the slightest imprint of the hardwood pressing into her back. There is nothing and no one but she and Killian in this moment.

There is nothing and no one other than the feeling of Killian running his fingers through her center, riling her up and making her ache in more want than she’s felt in a good many days. His touch was once a distant memory, something she could only relieve in faded flashbacks and hopeful wants of him returning, but none of that matters now.

He’s here, and her imagination and her memories could never compare to the reality.

Swallowing, Emma focus on Killian’s face as he hovers above her, but then he’s moving and kissing her shoulder, running his tongue under her collarbone, and she melts into the blankets until they’re one. She does the same with Killian slowly slides into her. He looks at her as he does so, wide blue eyes full of concern, but she nods her head and smiles to try to encourage him, to let him know that she’s perfectly alright.

In fact, she’s more than alright. The slight burn turns into her feeling nearly unbearably full, the warm thickness of him inside of her again is better than all of her dreams, and when Killian kisses her again, swirling his tongue around hers, any breathe that she had is surely gone.

Killian begins moving in slow gentle rocks of his hips pressed into hers, and Emma’s blood runs hot, pleasure building almost too quickly. She’d nearly forgotten what this felt like, and a part of her knows that it’s because it’s been so long since they were last together. Another part of her knows is that because it was different then. Everything about them was different.

It’s a new start, a new life, and it reminds her of how glad she is that she didn’t tell him she loved him on their wedding day. It would have been a lie, no matter how much she wishes for it to be true, but it’s not a lie now.

“Your skin smells like light,” Killian sighs out on a moan that shivers down her spine. “I think you may be my sun and my stars, possibly even the moon. Any light in the world is nothing compared to you.”

The words Killian speaks to her are better than any novel or poem she could read, and if she had words, any words that so much as came close to those, she’d say them. All she has, however, is, “I love you.”

That seems to be enough, especially when Killian speaks the words back against her skin and shifts his hips so that he’s sliding deeper inside of her and making Emma choke back happy whimpers. She can feel him everywhere – from where they’re joined to the way his chest hair brushes against her breasts to his lips on hers – and she never wants it to stop. But then Killian’s hand is brushing where they’re joined, and her desire begins to boil over. Emma’s fingers curl into his hair, making it a mess, and her back arches off the ground so that she can suddenly feel the sweat dripping down her back and forming at the nape of Killian’s hair.

And then her body is stilling, gooseflesh forming on every inch of bare skin, and Emma closes her eyes as she calls out Killian’s name along with several curses she normally only uses in his presence. She has no breath, no thoughts other than how good this all feels, and how she wants Killian to feel the same way. His movements have gone from careful to hurried, and if the dirty mutterings he’s whispering in her ear are any indication, he’s almost there too.

“Fuck,” he hisses, thrusting into her. “You’re divine. Absolutely divine.”

And then he’s desperately kissing her pulling out of her all in one motion so that he spills himself on her stomach before pressing down half on top of her and half on the blankets. Either way, they’re both breathless and if Killian is anything like her, quite possibly boneless. The thought makes her bite her tongue to stifle her laugh at the dirty joke, but a small chuckle escapes her anyway and has Killian turning to look at her with his sated smile.

“What has you laughing, my love?”

“Nothing,” she lies.

Killian huffs and leans into her, hotly pressing his lips against her neck where he’s sure she can feel her hammering pulse. “I meant to have you in a bed, you know? It was going to be proper unlike all of our other times together. I was going to do this the correct way and take my time with you, but I cannot seem to help myself when you’re in my presence.”

“I feel the same way.” She presses a kiss into his sweaty hair. “This was perfect, and if you want to have me in a bed, there’s always later.”

Killian’s laugh is so loud she’s surprised the entire house doesn’t wake up. “I will always want you. Always have, always will.”

-/-

Ruby’s smile is wolfish and knowing the next morning, and Mary Margaret can barely look Emma in the eye. Maybe they did manage to wake the entire house last night.

Or maybe Killian’s resounding kiss on her lips in the middle of the kitchen and his wild hair gave it away.

-/-

Emma’s favorite place that entire winter becomes the sitting room, and in her private moments, she tries to recreate so many of the memories she has in that room with all of her loved ones on one of her canvases. They’re never quite right, but they’re something.

Besides, she’s got more memories to make.

-/-

When spring comes and the weather warms the slightest bit, Killian falls down on one knee and asks if she’d like to marry him again. Emma laughs and tells him that they’re already married, as if he could forget, but he informs her that he’d like to do this properly as well.

The two of them standing in the new planted garden by the lake with buttercups in their hair and smiles on their faces doesn’t seem like a proper wedding, but when have the two of them ever done things in a conventional way?

And it’s perfect to her. To Killian too.

-/-

Years later, the new garden on the Nolan estate – Killian never felt it fit to be called Jones even if that is their name – is fully grown and filled with yellow flowers and weeds that always seem to be overgrown. It’s where their children laugh and play and beam happiness that fills Emma with such joy that she was never sure she’d feel again.

Surely Emma’s father is looking down on them and smiling as Killian tucks loose flowers into her hair before doing the same to their children until they giggle and run away before collapsing to the ground.

They’re all happy, as is she, and for all of the things life has given her, it’s happiness for which she is most thankful.

Emma and Killian never stop getting to know each other, and for that, she is thankful too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this! I'm not sure when my other "fic giveaway" stories will be ready to be posted, but they will be coming eventually! I think you guys will like them! ❤️

**Author's Note:**

> I can found on Tumblr at [let-it-raines](https://let-it-raines.tumblr.com) ☺️


End file.
